Reds’ golden point heartbreaker caps not-so-Super Round for winless Aussie sides
Updated ,first published
The Super Tour continued to be something else for the Australian teams in Christchurch after the Reds lost to the Blues with a golden point and the Brumbies were beaten by the Hurricanes to end the weekend winless.
Chasing a rare clean sweep of all five Kiwi teams in a single season, the Brumbies came no closer to making history with a one-sided 45-12 win over the Canes.
In the second match of the double-header at One New Zealand Stadium, the Reds put up a brave fight against the Aucklanders who fell behind early, scoring a goal in the last minute to equalize and take the match to extra time.
But Kiwi referee James Doleman whistled for a contentious penalty on Fraser McReight for an illegal entry within minutes and Beauden Barrett awarded the penalty for a 36-33 victory.
McReight argued that the Blues attacker had already kicked the ball when he attempted to steal but his pleas were ignored.
The defeats, a night after the Waratahs were blown out at the same park, capped a harrowing weekend for Australian teams whose similar weaknesses were exposed by more ruthless Kiwi sides.
The formations on the field were alarmingly poor, especially during the attack in the opponent’s red zone. The success rate of the Waratahs (64%), Brumbies (69%) and Reds (71%) proved fatal to their hopes of converting pressure into points.
The Reds fought hard to come back from 21-7 down and make it 21-21, but at the start of the second half they lost three consecutive series in their opponent’s quarter. This prevented the Reds from taking the lead and potentially securing the win, and instead the Blues came back, scored twice and were defeated again.
Led by Harry Wilson, Jock Campbell and Filipo Daugunu, Queensland’s courage enabled them to hold their own once again against Tim Ryan and Werchon. But after receiving the ball in stoppage time, the Reds faced the difficult task of escaping their own territory and the Blues waited patiently for Doleman’s penalty.
McReight accepted the referee’s call and said he had no regrets about stealing.
“As a seven, you get those moments,” McReight said. “There’s probably going to be a lot of evaluation on my part about what I could have done better, but you want to put yourself in that situation. I guess it’s like going for a 10 for a drop goal. Unfortunately, I was on the wrong side of that call tonight and we didn’t get the win we really, really wanted.”
Reds coach Les Kiss said he was “disappointed in the lads” but was proud of how they did not give up and continued to fight to level the scores despite shaky starts in both halves. He supported McReight’s selection in overtime.
“As a seven, you have to look for these opportunities, you have to do it,” Kiss said. “There’s no doubt the boys have the appetite and mentality to keep playing and we kept playing even though it slipped away from us at the start of the second half. We didn’t die wondering.”
Results at the weekend saw the Kiwi teams finish in the top four, but McReight and Kiss said they were confident they could beat the New Zealand teams following a much more competitive Trans-Tasman display in recent seasons.
Like the Tahs, the Brumbies’ formation was just one of many problems in their worst performance of the year; Bad kicks, defensive mistakes and pushed passes helped the Canes get a big score.
Hurricanes winger Fehi Fineanganofo scored a first-half hat-trick and finished with four tries.
The New Zealand team were outstanding defensively and shutting out the Brumbies, and the visitors were unable to gain any offensive momentum as they should have.
And when the Brumbies tried to get into good positions they failed horribly; especially in the first half, when balls were dead-kicked or tipped into the arms of the Hurricanes’ counter-attackers.
Declan Meredith was hooked at half-time as he killed two balls in penalties when the offensive line might have mounted a challenge.
The Hurricanes led 19-0 at halftime, but their second-half performance was even worse than the Brumbies. The Canes were much hungrier and the visitors had a bad slump in the final quarter.
By the end of the game the Brumbies had missed a staggering 48 tackles. The two tries in the second half were only in the consolation category.
“Our kicks weren’t where they needed to be, they were coming from our side, but at the same time some of the kicks were coming from their side as well,” Brumbies coach Stephen Larkham said.
“Four kicks were dead on, two from penalties and two out of control. I thought they put too much pressure on through the breakdown.
“We definitely had a chance at 22 in the first half, with a couple of non-squad players. I think that was probably one of the areas that struggled today, just our lineups. So we’ll review that and make sure we get better in that area.”
“It’s disappointing. We came here with pretty high expectations. We had a good fan support group here as well. The game finally broke out. We were chasing the game on the back end there.”
This is the Brumbies’ third defeat in their last four games and they are struggling for form at the wrong end of the season. Asked if they were going backwards, Larkham admitted the ACT side were not moving in the right direction.
“Every team is getting better as the competition continues and yes, I think the results, especially in the last two weeks, might show that we are going backwards,” Larkham said. “But we’ll go through the same process again, drown out the outside noise and make sure we focus on the inside this weekend.”
The Brumbies will be without experienced prop Allan Alaalatoa against the Reds next week, however, after losing him due to a concussion he suffered in pre-match training.
Larkham also has to deal with Meredith’s badly damaged confidence, but the coach believes the quarterback can bounce back.
“He’s had games like this before where things haven’t gone his way. There were other aspects of the game that were pretty good, haven’t there? It’s only two strikes,” Larkham said.
“After those two strikes he takes a lot of responsibility for the outcome of the game. And yes, there are big moments in the game where the 10s are in charge and he is used to that pressure. He recovers quickly.”
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Iain Payten is senior sports reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect with: X or email.
